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Kill Bill

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ByTor
Oct 11 2003
11:57 am

Random thoughts.

Visually the movie is spectacular.
I liked the anime.
It’s hard to tell whether the story will have any substance until Vol. 2 comes out.
Loved Uma.
Cool soundtrack as expected.
If I cut off someone’s arm does it really spray blood in all directions like that?
In Pulp Fiction, it seemed like there was actually less violence in the movie than the audience thinks there is (much of the violence was implied – left to the audience’s imagination). In Kill Bill, it seems like there is more violence than the audience thinks there is (much of the violence is cartoon-like or shown in black and white or shown as silhouette).
Don’t anyone dare compare the fight scene in this movie to the fight scene in the Matrix Reloaded.

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JabirdV
Jan 06 2004
09:53 pm

I should add that I saw Kill Bill some 20 times in less than a week and I never got tired of it…never slept…and never had the word “idolatry” come to mind. I thought it was great. Can’t wait for part 2!

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dan
Jan 07 2004
07:02 am

I think what we have here is….a difference of opinion. Horrors!

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grant
Jan 08 2004
09:27 am

Maybe I was impatiently trying to hurry an agreement along. From what Dave was saying about Tarantino’s project and motivations, it seems that the man has a film fetish. So I just equated film fetish with idolatry (a raising up of film above and beyond God and His Kingdom). If Quentin T. does not wish to serve people by revealing the Kingdom of God with his movies, we can quite rapidly agree as Christians that his movies are idolatrous and thus commence with our own opinions about the film.

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JabirdV
Jan 08 2004
04:14 pm

Is the blacksmith who is comissioned to create a statue and then pours all of his resources, talent, creativity and energy into it’s creation idolatrous? Or is the statue idolatrous? No, the folk who look at it as a god are idolatrous.

Tarantino is a gifted man. He has a hefty knowledge of cinema and it’s craft. He is definitely eccentric and holds nothing back when he directs a film. He is very good at doing what he does, no question there.

Does Tarantino have idolatrous views when engaging in a discussion about 70’s cinema? I don’t know. I have never read or heard anything from him that spells that out. no “behold the 70’s cinema in all of its glory!” comments. In his heart, well he may or may not. God can be the judge of that.

Is Kill Bill Vol 1 idolatrous? It could be. But so could this *cino site. Rob and Kirstin are not idolatrous for promoting a site that some would easily become addicted to (and it is easy) and hold as a form of god. Nor is the computer idolatrous for exposing the alleged member to it’s displays of blue, gray, white and olive.

Come on. A statue of Baal is nothing more than a peice of stone or metal. The power that it has is only manifested in the beliefs of those who worship it. An abbhoration of God’s almightiness? Absolutely…a sacrilege of His Word.

Reading some of this thread makes me wonder how are we as Christians truly looking at our culture. I reckognize that Kill Bill is extremely violent and offers no redeeming qualities, whatsoever. Then again so do most video games, music, tv shows and perhaps even alot of literature. Is the answer to go back to the mindset of closing out anything “secular” and listening to Maranatha! music only when it doesn’t have a drum track?

I am a bit confused.

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Adam
Jan 10 2004
12:42 am

Jabird, I’m sorry, but if watching a film with, in your words, “no redeeming qualities, whatsoever,” “20 times in less than a week” isn’t idolatry, what is? (Yes, I realize I have a plank in my eye.)

Besides, Aaron forged the golden calf for the people to worship. Are you going to tell me he wasn’t guilty of idolatry?

Is anyone else quite comfortable sitting on the fence about Mr. Tarantino?

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laurencer
Jan 10 2004
06:11 am

just to facilitate understanding here . . .

jabird works for DTS in hollywood, which does a lot of sound finishing work for films. so i’m imagining he watched “kill bill” 20 times in one week as he was working on the film.

let me know, jabird, if this is an incorrect assumption.

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JabirdV
Jan 10 2004
06:20 am

I guess Rob got to the post before I did…. :)

Adam,
It’s my job to sit and watch a film 20 times in any given week. Most of them bore me to tears after the first or second pass. Kill Bill was vibrant in color and smartly shot. The layout was intriguing and offered much as you watched the movie over and over discovering little things that added to the overall picture.
So I don’t think idolatry has much to do with it. As for redeeming value…I admire the artform. I admire the brilliance of the direction. I can’t say that the storyline offers much in terms of moral value or fiber.

Agreed on Aaron. Sorry that my comment wasn’t clear enough. I was not speaking of any particular historic occurance…but of a hypothetical situation. My point is that idolatry is found in the hearts of the idolatrous worshipers…not in the object of their idolatry (or the idol). The idol is not sinful, but the acts of those who worship it is.

Perhaps I am forcing semantics here…but call Kill Bill violent – well I couldn’t agree more. And “the lovers of violence are detestable in the eyes of the Lord” (a Psalm or Proverb I remember reading). But to call the film “idolatrous” is confusing to me. Especially as I am trying to read the reasoning that Grant was getting at.

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matthews
Jan 11 2004
01:45 am

It seems as though those of us who are waiting to see how the story will be concluded will have to wait a little longer. I guess revenge is a dish best served cold but I would like to know where he will take the story before I feel free to say too much about it.

“Volume 2 Release seems to be shifted to April 16 or even later (maybe a possible Cannes 04 premiere)”
http://www.tarantino.info/

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grant
Jan 12 2004
12:36 pm

I just read a really good article in the Oct. 20, 2003 issue of The New Yorker on Quentin Tarantino. The first paragraph goes like this:

“When Quentin Tarantino goes to the movies, he sits in the front. Not in the first row, where he’d have to move his head from side to side to see what’s happening in the corners, but the third or fourth row, where he can take in the whole screen and is aware of nothing but the screen. The trick is to exclude from his range of vision anything that would take him out of the movie, such as exit signs or wall sconces or just distance. He wants to be overwhelmed. Otherwise, what’s the point? He might as well be watching television. Because he sits so far forward, his head is tipped back and his whole face is opened to the screen, as though he were receiving Communion—mouth slightly open, eyes wide, fist-in-a-sock chin pushing forward, large pale forehead flickering with the film.”

The author of the article, “The Movie Lover”, recognizes that there’s something religious about Tarantino’s love for film. Of course that’s true. But the question I’m asking is whether or not it’s a religious love that is aimed in the right direction? Tarantino’s love for cathartic violence in movies is not just represented in the drama of his films, but, according to Tarantino’s own words, it’s in the relationship between the director and the audience: “The audience and the director, it’s an S&M relationship, and the audience is the M.” Tarantino loves the first twenty minutes of Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” (“That first twenty minutes is pretty fucking perfect”) because of the violence, the beating of the bum, the raping of the girl, but here’s what he says about Kubrick: “I always thought Kubrick was a hypocrite, because his party line was, I’m not making a movie about violence, I’m making a movie against violence. And it’s just like, Get the fuck off. I know and you know your dick was hard the entire time you were shooting those first twenty minutes, you couldn’t keep it in your pants the entire time you were editing it and scoring it. You liked the rest of the movie, but you put up with the rest of the movie. You did it for those first twenty minutes. And if you don’t say you did you’re a fucking liar.” Tarantino calls Kubrick a liar because Kubrick goes against what Tarantino considers the honest truth of film: that the great joy of film is violence. Tarantino respects but hates Kubrick because Kubrick seems like a hypocrite against the “true” nature of film. I suspect Tarantino thinks Kubrick believes he (Kubrick) is above film because Kubrick denies getting “lost” in the world of his films. I’m thinking that Tarantino hates Kubrick’s stance because for Tarantino, you must bow to the power of the film itself rather than try to pretend to be “better” than it. I think this is why Tarantino hates snobbish laughter at old genre films and also hates when people call him an ironic film maker. When Tarantino mimics a cheesy genre film, he is not meaning to make fun, but to honor it. Tarantino has never met a movie he didn’t like. It’s all fascinating to him because it’s film and how can you dare question or criticize film?!! After reading this excellent article, I’m even more convinced that the grotesque honor Tarantino bestows upon film—which, he believes, ought to overshadow the realities of the world—is an idolatrous gesture.

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JabirdV
Jan 12 2004
01:30 pm

Thanks Grant for the research and the excerpts from the article. I appreciate the thoughtfulness written.

Tarantino is an eccentric, no doubt. I retract my statement about Tarantino’s idolatry of films.